


The Static Knows My Name

by SamaelChandra



Category: The Secret World
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Development, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:36:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8291146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamaelChandra/pseuds/SamaelChandra
Summary: Living in a post-apocalyptic world is difficult. Being an agent for the Illuminati is difficult. Being one of the agents of Gaia is difficult... But, then again, everything is difficult when you feel like nothing matters and a deep, dark secret threatens to swallow you whole. 
Seth should have known.





	

“Grave news from the Happy Smiles Kindergarten. It has been reported that one of the students attending the Kindergarten has been brought away from the playground – under the eyes of unsuspecting witnesses, a mother has reportedly dragged away her only child under the false pretense of taking her home, only to attempt a homicide-suicide feat in the nearby cemetery.

Authorities instructed everyone to keep away to avoid further disturbance as investigations are underway.

The mother has been shot on sight while the girl remains unharmed, though in a clear state of deep emotional shock.

More on this in the next news report.”

       _Chuck, wake up._

You have heard this so many times.

       _You’re sleeping in again, Chuck._

It’s a piece of old news – you can tell from the soft static in the background… though, nowadays, everything has it. It creeps through the speakers, corrupts the voices from within, twisting them enough that even cheesy Korean dramas soon began to feel like a nightmarish lucubration of a Lovecraftian’s mind.

       _Tick, tock, tick, tock, Chuck. You’re late._

You don’t really remember, do you? The moment it began to feel like a daily routine: wake up, eat, work, eat, sleep, wake up. Sometimes you wonder when he’ll stop reminding you to open your eyes. You would really appreciate that.

 

* * *

 

 

A half-done crossword puzzle laid open in the middle of the coffee table, two pens side by side, nudged in the cradle between the two pages; different hands wrote the words in the small squares – a round robin game between the two friends that inhabited the small apartment that barely had enough rooms for them to sleep in.

The living room still smelt like spilled perfume, a darker spot on the carpet marking the place where a small bottle of vanilla crashed, leaving a certain heavy scent to linger in the apartment – something that Seth’s friend didn’t quite like but put up with for the sake of having a place to sleep.

“Your apartment **still** reeks of that cheap stuff you’ve bought from London’s Haitian Market,” a male voice said, echoing through the thin corridor of the house, “I told you the guy was ripping you off with that stuff. Smells like rotten corpses” – he whined, groaning as his hands moved away the coffee table with a dry scratch over the linoleum surface and proceeded to roll the carpet in a tube, hoping that Screed’s laundry would accept something that had a smell worse than a horse’s blanket. He highly doubted it but he could have always dropped hints that the Illuminati were right on his arse.

“Stop complaining and put that thing on the balcony, would you?” was the reply of the other person in the apartment, a woman whose voice was loud and high pitched – like the one of a kid - “I’m not going to hang around doing the chores with you if complaints and whines are all I get”; as a faint laugh reached the man’s ears, his partner made her entrance through the ruined archway that separated the dimly lit corridor and the living room.

She wasn’t tall and her presence was demure, with the unpretentious black cropped shrug that draped over her shoulders, hiding the thin straps that kept the tattered white tank underneath it still up, although they were beginning to loosen up and become thinner by the day; her slanted eyes peered around the room as if trying to take in as much as she could before she had to blink, an instantaneous photograph to remind her that it was a familiar place and not the usual “run of the mill” hotel in Transylvania.

Not that she particularly disliked sleeping under the trees in the Shadowy Forest, gazing lazily at the wisps surrounding Anastasia’s traveling cart and eavesdropping on Milosh’s antics about pretty much everything pertaining the Romani; it felt nice to have a window on something that had been long forgotten by everyone, a rather biased version of what she had already once learnt from the Buzzing: although logic might object that Milosh and, by reflection, Mihas were two sources of reliable stories that didn’t end up with either one of the two brothers wrestling a bear and successfully wearing its pelt as a trophy (the girl could have sworn she had heard that about Milosh’s coat **and** Mihas’, at some point) it was still nice not to have someone who constantly wanted to drag your ass into the deepest end of humans’ fears.

As her mind wandered through those cheery thought, the gritty reality of having to squat on the floor and scratch the stain off the old wooden floor hit the woman right in the face thanks to the help of her companion: as a matter of fact, he had just started ranting about the extreme need to take everything that the perfume had touched somewhere where they could have properly been washed… which ruled Screeds’ laundry out of the equation. “Seth?”

 

* * *

 

 

       _Chuck, you’re daydreaming._

You know. He knows. Probably everyone does; Geary doesn’t really believe you really did what you did _that_ night.

       _It’s not like anyone believed in you in that school, either._

Why try to study if you can’t open your mouth?  It’s not going to change anything.

       _You’re making up excuses, Chuck._

You didn’t sign up for the special offer “ **Judgmental Smoker Voice – now 24h/7d!** ”, you most definitely didn’t.

**Author's Note:**

> so first thing first: the title is a direct reference to the game "the static speaks my name", a free to play psychological horror made by jesse barksdale! i've taken inspiration from how the atmosphere was handled and how the static played a peculiar part in it, as well as the one it plays in the secret world.
> 
> it's my first publishing a story that involves one of my original character and sanjha "heckatonkheir" doesn't belong to me but to my best friend! which is also seth's best friend...  
> some names might be a bit too away from people that don't know the mmorpg "the secret world", but i hope it won't be too hard to read even if you are a new entry to the community!
> 
> as always, if i made some errors (synthax or grammar), please tell me. i want to improve my writing!


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